Arranged
by SabastianScott
Summary: Something's bothering Mai. She won't tell. She's scared that if she does, the whole thing will be true. She's been hiding it for months, but it's getting close. Will all go according to plan? Throw in three mentally deranged adults, a little kid, and some tea, what do you have? Quite a sticky situation, for sure. Read at own risk.


**Not my best work… I considered several other possibilities with this, including a multi-chapter thing, but I'm still working on Blind and this was simply for fun, more or less. Maybe one day I'll do it differently, but for now, it's a oneshot. Besides, I'm not sure how many people would be interested in this anyway. **

**This isn't really any pairing, if you squint you may see Naru x Mai, but by the time you find it your face may be stuck squinting and you'll need glasses.**

**I don't own Ghost Hunt. If I did… Well, if I were you I'd be scared.**

_**ARRANGED**_

"So, what, are you gonna tell me what's up or not?" Monk asked. For the past hour, which is how long I've been at work, I've been sulking in my chair, and for the past fifteen minutes, which is how long Monk's been here, Monk has been trying to get me to cheer up and tell him what was wrong. He'd just finished a story about himself, a zookeeper, two butterfly nets, and an iguana.

I sighed; he just wouldn't let it drop. "Look, I wish more than anything to tell you, but I can't! I seriously can't! I just… can't. I can hardly grasp the situation myself. I'd hate to see not only your reaction, but everyone else's too."

Monk looked heartbroken now. Crap. "Why can't you tell me Mai? I just want to fix it, kid."

"Ah," I looked at him and smiled. It was a sad smile, but it also had a bit of hope in it too, I think, "I don't think, no, I KNOW you wouldn't be able to fix it. Only one person can, hopefully he won't change his mind… but anyway, hopefully everything will go as planned and it won't even need to be something I have to bring up."

"So there IS something going on," Monk said seriously. I sighed again.

"Monk, we already established that after you told the story about the guitar and the keyboardist, but before the iguana and butterfly net story," I said.

"Right, just making sure. It doesn't explain what's wrong, or why you can't tell me," Monk continued. "And even if this whole thing brushes over, I'm going to make you tell me."

"I'm afraid I can't tell you anything. Even if it does blow over, I think I'd rather not talk about it anyway," I tried to get him to stop asking about it, but he was determined.

"Not talk about what?" I heard from behind us. I turned around to find Naru leaning in his doorway, holding some papers.

"AH, nothing, nothing at all!" I tried to dismiss it, but Naru wasn't going to listen.

"It doesn't sound like nothing to me. Monk?" Naru looked to Monk for answers, he had been the one who made me say it.

"Something's bothering her, but she won't tell me… but she's cheered up from how she was before," Monk said. It was true, talking to Monk and listening to his stories always made me feel better. Even though it was just trying to get me to talk about something I rather I didn't discuss.

"Mai?" Naru, once again, had stated an entire paragraph of questions into a single word.

"Yes, something is wrong right now. Nothing to worry about though, hopefully. If it gets worse I'll tell you. And Monk's story has made me feel better about the whole thing. Tea?" I tried to avoid the questioning. If anybody could get anyone to speak without any physical touch, it'd be Naru.

I quickly ran off to the kitchen to get said tea from before, quickly brushing past where Naru still stood. I also grabbed an iced coffee for Monk. I ran some tea to Lin then walked back to the sitting area. Naru now had sat down on the couch. Crap.

I gave them their drinks and started drinking my own, avoiding eye contact. It didn't last long, and Naru spoke again. "What is so wrong that you refuse to tell us what the problem is?"

I sighed. Time to bring out the big guns. This would be such a low blow. I really hated it. But I really, really didn't want to talk about it, and unfortunately, what I was about to say was all true. "Look, it has to do with my parents, okay? And something they did, and it involves me. Heck, it's practically all about me. So, can we drop for now, please? I promise, if it gets worse, or things don't go as planned, I'll tell you. If it blows over, then don't worry about it. Okay?"

Monk looked at me for a moment, then looked down into his drink. He nodded, and I smiled before turning to Naru. Naru just stared for a moment before looking at some of the papers he brought out. "Get back to work, Mai," was all he said, but it was still a dismissal.

I smiled again and practically waltzed to my desk again.

_**ARRANGED**_

It was two weeks after that, and the situation had, in fact, gotten worse. We'll start at the night before, when it started out.

Tanaka Oji currently stood in front of my doorstep.*

He was a handsome man, with choppy black hair and pale skin, like Naru, but that's where any similarities end. He originally has brown eyes, but wears bright red colored contacts. His hair is also a strange reddish-black, while Naru, if not pitch-black hair, had deep blue-black hair.

Practically polar opposites. One red, one blue.

But it continued. While Naru still wore black to this day, (yeah, we know it's you Oliver dearest), he wore it formally. Tanaka Oji, well, his style was punk. So while he wore black, it wasn't all he wore, and it wasn't a statement for any lost twin. If it was any statement, it was against his parents.

Ah, parents, the whole reason why he was here, holding official documents.

I had already signed the stupid things, but Tanaka Oji still had to.

"Ah, Mr. Oji, what are you doing here? Have you signed anything yet?" I asked. This was honestly my first time meeting him, and vice versa. He had just greeted himself at the door, and made sure I was, in fact, Mai, and that he hadn't come up to someone else's apartment.

He responded in a masculine voice, deep for a teenager and some adults, but not like he could hold the same note as a tuba without even trying. "The lawyer says I have to spend at least an hour with you before I even touch a pen, in case I 'change my mind'. Although honestly, I'd basically be forcing you to do this only because I wanted to. And please, call me Tanaka. Calling me Mr. Oji…"

"Makes you sound like your dad who could burn in hell for all you care. I read the letters," I sighed before inviting him into my apartment. Truthfully I wasn't expecting him, but I was about to make dinner, so I guess I could make some for both of us.

"Thanks, the lawyer is in the car, making sure I don't leave and actually spend time with you," Tanaka said as he took off his shoes at the door. "No offense, but this whole affair is stupid. Who does this in this century anymore, anyway?"

"Our parents, apparently. I'm just glad you can legally sign us out. If my parents were still alive, I bet they would have cut the whole thing out by now," I sighed, closing the door as Tanaka stepped further into my home.

"You don't know that necessarily. They could have been even more forcing than my parents. Ah, but still, sorry for the loss."

"Don't worry about it. It happened. And you're right. The fact they arranged this at all still shocks me. I wish it was all just a big mistake…" I commented. "Hey, I was about to make dinner, want some?"

"Uh, sure. Why not? I'm stuck here for an hour and you're offering me food," Tanaka smiled and stepped into the living room. The apartment started out in the kitchen, and the living room/dining room was right through the archway. There you'd find two doors leading to the two bedrooms. Another door was at the end of the kitchen, which leads to the single bathroom. I had shared this apartment with my teacher when I was younger, and now I had tatami mats everywhere. I still took my shoes off, and Tanaka had too after seeing that I didn't have them on.

I had my parents' shrine in the next room, and when I came in to ask how Tanaka liked his fish, I found him talking to the shrine.

Well, he started out talking, then that turned to yelling about one, leaving a child behind, and two, for getting us into this mess. I sighed. I seemed to be doing that a lot, sighing.

"Hey, can you please stop yelling at them? I don't mind anything you're yelling at them about, so there's no need to yell. Also, how do you like your fish?"

And the evening went on like that. At the end of it, we were friends and he promised to come by again sometime. I didn't tell him about SPR. People usually don't take that too well. So he signed the papers, and left on his merry way with a distraught lawyer. Obviously he hoped we would change our minds.

Nice try, dude.

But the real trouble came the next day, while I was working all day at the office.

"Hey Naru, here's the tea," I said, popping into his office. He took his tea without a second thought, and of course, without thanks. I was about to yell at him when we heard the door slam. I turned around and headed out the office door while Naru put the cup down from his lips and walked to the door with me. I popped my head out and froze.

There stood Tanaka, his parents, the lawyer, and Tanaka's little (adopted) brother. His parents and the lawyer looked victorious and pleased, and held several official looking documents. Tanaka looked pissed, beyond pissed, actually. His little brother Mio looked sad.

And as for me? I probably looked scared.

We sat down in the sitting area. Naru and Lin insisting on sitting in. Looks like the secret will be out in about five minutes. I asked them not to ask questions until the end. After they figure out, though, they'll probably forget about that, and quite possibly punch someone, while they're at it.

"We have come across something interesting, our dear little Mai," Mrs. Oji stated in a sickly sweet voice. I just glared. I REALLY hated that women. "I have to admit, your efforts were great, but all in vain."

The lawyer took his cue to take over. He spilled out documents in front of us like a fan on the coffee table. "You see, while you and Tanaka can sign all the papers you want, at least one parent on either side has to agree."

"Seeing as you have no living relatives, especially not parents, one of us have to speak up for this," Mr. Oji, the dad, said, smirking all the while. "However, neither of us do agree. Even if you were to find someone to adopt you and send the papers out today, it wouldn't be in time."

"Correct, my dearest," Mrs. Oji commented. "The only thing you two will be signing, is your marriage certificate. The wedding date is in a month, you know that don't you?" Of course I knew, and I felt like slapping them.

"Why do you want to do this?" I said, somehow I wasn't screaming. I certainly sounded pissed though. "That arrangement is, traditionally, started once I turn 18, but was only a precautionary for if one of us had no one else to marry into power by the time we turned thirty or something. So why are you insisting on the marriage be on my freakin eighteenth birthday!?"

"Because, dearest, while you may not be in a powerful family anymore, you still have, as I should say, a pure heritage. And Tanaka here is trying to leave the Oji Company. We can't have that. So this marriage, along with the other details of it, will keep him safe at home," Mrs. Oji smiled wickedly. If anything, the adult's expressions were purely giddy.

"So you're willing to ruin her life just so I stay in the company?" Tanaka said darkly. His head was bowed low, and I couldn't see his eyes through his bangs.

"Well, of course. It's not that we don't love and cherish Mio, or that he couldn't do it, but we'd rather you took over the company," Mr. Oji said.

Tanaka then looked up. And I swear, he had fire in his eyes.

Wait. Oh shit. Tanaka was pyrokinetic. He could only do so if extremely pissed. Which he currently was. And he was eyeing the papers and the shirts of all three adults.

He could start a fire right now on anything he wanted.

"Tanaka, I know your pissed," I said though clenched teeth. "So am I." I stood up them. "But if you start a fire in here it's just letting them win. They have all of our copies of our signed documents. They have only one of several documents of their own. Burn those, and they'll win."

Tanaka then looked back at the papers. He tried to pick one up, but the lawyer grabbed his hand. The three all had grim faces on them. In fact, they looked upset and pissed. I had hit the right spot.

There wasn't any guideline for having to have one parent's consent. It was a bluff.

They knew Tanaka would get pissed and burn the documents that said it. Later we would find out the truth, but it took two months at least for the papers to process again. By then, we would be bound. We could always get a divorce, but it would end up badly for us both if we tried. If we tried to run off, we'd be found quickly. We had tracking devices in our necks since we were young for various reasons, and this was going to be one of them if we tried.

But they hadn't counted on me noticing. If working with Naru has taught me anything, it was to recognize a bluff. After all, the whole reason I was working here was because of a bluff over paying for a ridiculously expensive camera. Nor did they count on me knowing of Tanaka's little 'ability'.

When we first found out about this whole thing, I started talking to Tanaka, to see if there was a way out, and if there wasn't, about who he was. We didn't really consider ourselves friends but rather acquaintances. He did, however tell me about his pyrokinesis when we thought we had no way out, just in case he started a fire after he had a bad day. He wanted to be a musician, not a company manager, but his dad was persistent. One day while being forced to go through old documents, he found our loophole. If we both didn't want to have anything to do with the marriage, there were some papers we could sign to get out of it.

And that's how we got here. Tanaka demanded a lawyer, got the documents, sent them to me, I sent them back, and now we're all caught up.

Tanaka took one look at the lawyer and flipped him over his shoulder. That's one fight. Lin tried to grab it next. I had hardly remembered that he and Naru were there. Mr. Oji then went into a flying tackle. Mrs. Oji grabbed me in a headlock and held me back, and whenever Naru tried to move, she'd move her arm tighter around my neck.

Basically, the adult Oji's and the lawyer are insane.

We were stuck in a standstill. I was being used as hostage. No one could move without her threatening to harm me.

Then Monk walked in.

Chaotic doesn't even begin to describe fighting continued.

We were at what I though was another standstill after a few minutes. Monk was unconscious and everyone else like before. I looked over to the table and gasped.

All the documents were gone. Then I heard a young voice near the office door.

"These are, for Mai and Tanaka's part, officially letting them out of the arranged marriage," Mio said, holding onto one set of documents. "Those, on the other hand," he indicated some documents on the floor, "are phony. Fake. And one of them is an application to a fast food place in Taiwan."

"Mio, now baby, don't you want Mai to be your big sis? Didn't you want a sister?" Mrs. Oji said sweetly. She was trying to get him on her side. It made me want to barf. Then I had an idea.

I took a bit of a step or two forward.

"Not like this! No one's happy this way!"

"Ah, but I'd be happy, and so would Daddy. Don't you want us to be happy?"

I ran my feet backwards and kicked into the air. I hit Mrs. Oji on the head and did a flip before landing… on my back. I wasn't very good at this. But, I was free from her arms and she was unconscious. Naru didn't waste a second on taking out the lawyer and Lin swiftly had Mr. Oji on the ground. I ran over to Monk, he hit his head hard when he went unconscious.

And so, Mio ran over to Tanaka and handed him the papers we signed while Naru picked up the fake documents off the floor.

Oh this would be a long day.

_**ARRANGED**_

A week later we watched as the older Oji's and the lawyer were put into custody. Tanaka and one of the best workers were working through the company as they trained Mio to take over.

Trial would be in two months.

As for the arranged marriage, it was dissolved.

I had a lot of explaining to do to Naru, Monk, and Lin, but thankfully I wouldn't ever have to explain it, as long as they kept their mouths shut, especially Monk.

A little over a month after the trial, during which the Oji's and the lawyer were found guilty of threatening a life (mine) and of faking legal documents and, it had been found, faking the arranged marriage of Tanaka and I, everyone had ended up gathering at the office. Soon we found ourselves having an improvised party with everyone sitting around and drinking tea. Even Lin and Naru were with us, not really talking, but the fact they were here at all was a miracle.

We somehow ended up talking about sticky situations that we heard in the news.

"I heard the Oji company had a bit of problem recently, anyone know about that?" Madoka said. Masako nodded in agreement.

"Yeah I heard, something about a few faked documents," Ayako commented in,

Monk looked like he was thinking. Then, as if struck by lightning, sat straight up and snapped his fingers. "Oh, the Oji's! Wasn't that the last name of the guy you had an arranged marriage with Mai?"

Everyone looked at me except Lin and Naru, who looked at Monk like he was an idiot. Which he was.

Monk seemed to realize his blunder. He wasn't supposed to tell.

Oh, he was a dead man.

_**ARRANGED**_

**Ah, hopefully you guys aren't killing me for this, since I should be working on Blind. This was born on a day with no internet connection, so therefore, I couldn't watch the Ghost Hunt episodes like I need to so I can write Blind. **

***Oh, Tanaka Oji may sound familiar to you. **

**There's a character out there called Oji Tanaka. He's a guitarist or something.**

**However, I didn't know this until AFTER I wrote this. I got really curious as to why the heck it sounded familiar, other than Tanaka Company. So I looked his name up (after I got my Internet back). He is an actual character, but he's an older adult. **

**So basically I think I made a young handsome Oji Tanaka. I liked the name too much to change it though! He actually comes from the anime Black Heaven (mainly). So there. But I own the guy that's in this fic. They may be similar, but they are two completely different characters I swear. So any fans of Tanaka Oji out there… I apologize. He isn't here.**


End file.
